


Feel Something

by Boots (pwnmercys)



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Corporal Punishment, Gen, Overthinking, Role Reversal, Spanking, The Beating Scene, and the fallout from there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pwnmercys/pseuds/Boots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since the day Wendla asked him to beat her, Melchior can't get the scene out of his mind.  He resolves himself to feel what Wendla had felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel Something

It was not in itself unusual for Melchior to find himself lost in thought, fixated on examining some idea or resolving some question.  What concerned him about his current thoughts was the subject matter.  It had been days since the incident in the woods when Wendla had asked him to beat her, and still their encounter weighed heavy in Melchior’s mind.  

As much as he tried, he couldn’t understand her.  He himself had been struck many times as punishment, sometimes without any legitimate wrongdoing on his part.  It seemed to Melchior that his teachers often hit him out of spite, when he disagreed with an opinion or questioned their interpretation of “facts”.  He had never found anything rewarding in that, and he couldn’t see how anyone would.

When Wendla asked him, Melchior had been startled, confused.  How could someone want to be beaten?  When he voiced his concern, he hardly got an answer; Wendla herself didn't seem to understand why she was asking him, or what she was asking for.  If she had, she surely wouldn’t have asked.  Still, she had been persistent, even begging Melchior to hit her, until he conceded.  Her ignorance had frustrated him, and her persistence infuriated him.  Could Melchior really blame himself for what he had done, when he was only doing what she had asked, no, insisted he do?  

He couldn't understand why Wendla had pushed him, even as she was clearly in pain.  Melchior had felt frustrated, then angry, then furious as she kept her calm and insisted, as he himself often tried to do, that it did not hurt her.  He became so incensed that he could scarcely remember striking her harder and harder, as she continued to say that she felt nothing.  Had Wendla anticipated such a response?  She had been stubborn, yes, and had even seemed to  _ want _ to be hurt with a desire beyond mere curiosity.  Even if she had intended for Melchior to strike her harder with the switch, he had not stopped there.  What had he done?

Melchior struggled most with the gratification he himself had gotten from hitting her, from hurting her.  What kind of person would enjoy doing such a thing?  Melchior had felt something stirring within him when he caused her pain, even when he made her cry.  How terrible he must be to have enjoyed beating her, and more than that, to have gotten so lost in the moment that he had gone on to hit her harder in spite of her obvious discomfort.  He had let his anger get the best of him, and Wendla had paid the price for it.  

Or had she merely paid the price for her own ignorance?  Melchior knew firsthand how undesirable it was, and he had done what he could to dissuade her, but she persisted.  To Melchior's mind, no motivation could justify Wendla’s repeated demands.  Yes, he had wanted to teach her a lesson.  He wanted to hurt her, to make her understand what it truly felt like to be beaten.  Of course Wendla had been unable to achieve that understanding by hitting herself; it was nothing alike.  The question was, had Melchior's motivation been to satisfy her, or to satisfy something within himself?  And further, which possibility was worse?  Neither made any sense.

Or perhaps something did make sense.  As he examined his own thoughts, Melchior realized that there was some amount of satisfaction to be found in having endured the pain of a beating without giving much sign that it had hurt him.  This was particularly true of an unjust punishment, which motivated him all the more to maintain his composure.  To keep a straight face, to remain stoic in the face of his teachers’ unjustified wrath, was rewarding in a way.  And really, Melchior reflected, to stay calm and collected may have been a manner of provocation in itself, a means of thwarting his teachers' attempts at discipline.  Was there such a difference between Melchior’s efforts to maintain a calm, indifferent exterior while he was being punished, and Wendla’s own insistence that he had not hurt her?  Perhaps he was beginning to understand her after all.

Yet if there were some satisfaction to be found in being beaten with a rod or a switch in the guise of punishment, as soon as Melchior had raised his hand against her, that satisfaction was surely gone.  With that, the sense of triumph and endurance must have been replaced with terror.  The experiment she had proposed had been controlled, had been planned.  Wendla had offered the switch to Melchior, and while she had given him permission to use it, she had agreed to nothing else.  Not only had she agreed to the switch, in fact, but she had asked for it--no, she had begged for it.  But Melchior had gone and destroyed the exercise by dropping the switch entirely and striking Wendla with his fists.  He couldn’t imagine what Wendla must have felt in that moment.  While Melchior understood the pain of a beating, he had never known the threat of his instructors losing control, the terror of not knowing what they might do.   Being beaten at school never held the threat of such violence.  And so, while he understood the pain, he had never experienced the fear.

Melchior was beginning to see the seriousness of what he had done.  He had been horrified almost immediately, and now he had come to feel sorry, even guilty for what he had done to her.  He’d spent the days since trying to put it out of his mind, but he could not stop thinking about it.  The creeping sense of guilt that had begun with Wendla’s tears had only increased as Melchior continued to think--never before had he so clearly recognized his overthinking to be a flaw--and now that it had begun to feed on feelings rather than logic, his mind seemed unable to stop.  It overwhelmed him, and he soon found it difficult to think of anything else.  Wait--hadn’t Wendla said the same?

The wild thought occurred to Melchior to ask Wendla to reciprocate what he had done.  But no--Wendla was a sweet girl, she would never--Melchior couldn’t do that to her, could not drag her down to his own level.  And yet, Wendla knew how it felt to want this, to want to feel.  She understood what it meant to desire this, and to have no other means of reprieve.  Did Melchior, then--did he too  _ desire  _ this, even with his guilt put aside?  There was no way for him to say.  Either that, or Melchior did not want to admit to himself the answer which he already knew.  

No, he could hardly understand himself any more than he had understood Wendla.  Melchior had never thought of himself as someone who would be interested in this sort of thing, yet now it was difficult to deny that it provoked a certain curiosity.  Even after days of consideration, Melchior was still not sure what he hoped would happen if he should talk to Wendla.  Again he imagined himself in her place, and the thought excited him in ways similar to and yet so different from his other fantasies.   

Melchior resolved himself to do whatever was necessary to stop these thoughts from haunting him.  He knew that he needed to speak with Wendla; it all came down to encountering her at the right time and place.  Melchior knew the spot beside the stream where Wendla liked to dream; Wendla knew the tree where Melchior liked to think.  He expected it would not be difficult to encounter her.

For several days, Melchior visited the stream in the hopes of finding Wendla, but she never seemed to be there when he came looking.  When he grew tired of this, Melchior concluded that he should return to his own haunts, and that perhaps she would encounter him there.  In the interim, the pages of Melchior’s journal filled themselves with speculation on the nature and effectiveness of corporal punishment, the power dynamics inherent in beating someone, the fundamental causes of fear.  One day, as he was commenting on the imbalance of power between the roles of teacher and student, Wendla wandered past his tree.  Finally, the conversation for which Melchior had waited so desperately could happen.

Melchior looked up at Wendla and offered her his best warm smile.  He wondered if the nervousness that trembled in his chest was as obvious to her as it seemed to him.

“Wendla!  It feels so long since I last saw you.”  Melchior could feel a slight warmth rising in his cheeks.  Then he remembered why he had been looking for her.  “Although--although I would understand if you didn't want to see me.”  His face could no longer conceal his nerves at having this conversation.

“But why wouldn’t I want--” Wendla began, confused.  Melchior stood to address her, interrupting her mid-sentence.  

“ _Because_.  Don’t you remember what happened the last time I saw you here?”  In his frustration, Melchior could hear himself raising his voice against his own will.  His body felt tense, the irritation he had felt back then rising within him.  It was dangerous, and Melchior knew that now more than ever, he needed to remain calm.  He paused, giving Wendla the opportunity to respond.

“I do remember.  I’m sorry, truly I am, I should never have asked!  You were right, how could I ask for such a thing when it causes others to suffer so?”  She looked at him, apologetic.  “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“No!  Wendla, no.  You can’t blame yourself, when I was the one who agreed to it.  I agreed to hit you--to hurt you!  That was all me.”  Melchior shook his head and let out a pained sigh.  “I didn’t know--no, I knew!  I knew what I was doing, I’ve been beaten before!  Please, if anyone is apologizing for what happened, it should be me.”

Wendla’s eyes grew wide.  “You mean I asked you to, even though you know for yourself how much it hurts?  I’m the one who's sorry for putting you in that position.  I kept pushing you, even though you knew what I was asking for when I didn't even realize it myself.  You tried to stop me--.”

“Shh, shhh,” Melchior grasped her hand.  “Listen.  Can I ask you for a favor?”  He drew in a quick breath to steady his nerves. “You don’t have to say yes.  You don't have to do it.  But I need to ask you.”

Wendla seemed curious, unsure.  “Of course you can.”

Melchior forced himself to meet Wendla’s eyes and saw her confusion there.  He took another deep breath; and yet even as he tried to steady himself, his voice, his hands were shaking.  Where was Melchior’s fearless honesty now?  Look at him, unable even to pronounce the word “beating." Melchior Gabor, who was known for not being ashamed of anything.  “Would you--” he managed, and had to pause a few seconds before being able to continue, “--be willing to hit me, like I hit you?”

Wendla looked startled at the question, but she did not protest the way Melchior had.  Instead, she asked, “But why?  Have you changed your mind?  Do you believe now that people can be better for it?”

Melchior shook his head, doubt flickering across his features.  “I don’t know.  I felt so sure before that it was impossible.  And yet now, I have to wonder if it might be so.”

Wendla tilted her head.

“Not that I mean--not better for it, exactly.  But I wonder if there might be something to it.  Some way that it might be gratifying.  Some way that a person could want to… to be beaten.”  Melchior had finally brought himself to say the word, but he didn’t feel much better.  “I don’t want to think about what I did to you and hold it against you or judge you.  I don’t want to feel bitter.  And I don’t…”  Melchior made a face, and then took another deep breath.  “I don’t want to feel guilty for hurting you.  It’s selfish, I know.  You don’t have to do it,” he repeated.

“You feel guilty?” asked Wendla, and she seemed saddened.  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Don’t--” interrupted Melchior again.  “Don’t apologize anymore.  Please don’t.”

Wendla paused.  Melchior watched, tense, as her demeanor changed.  “Would it help you?”  She seemed more calm now, more composed.  “If I beat you.  Would it make you feel better?”

“Yes.”  Melchior’s response was swift and sure, but then he hesitated.  “At least, I think so.  I can't promise that I know what this is.  I know I want to feel, to experience it for myself.”  He drew another shaky breath.  “Can you understand?  It’s true that I’ve been beaten before, but somehow it… it doesn’t seem the same.  I hurt you, and you don’t seem to care.  I just want to--I want to know, truly, what I did to you.”

Wendla looked for a moment as if she were holding something back, perhaps another apology.  Then she regained her composure and nodded.  “I think I can understand.”

Melchior exhaled again, unsteady.  He looked at Wendla, and he felt sure that he couldn’t hide his desperation.  His voice felt urgent, ragged.  “So.”

“So.”  Wendla looked Melchior up and down, taking her time in responding to him, which only made Melchior’s body more tense.  She seemed to be taking the matter into sincere consideration.  After what seemed to Melchior to be a long time, Wendla gave a thoughtful nod.  “I’ll do it, yes.”

Melchior breathed a sigh of relief, only then realizing that he had been holding his breath.  He felt so small before her now.  “Thank you, Wendla.”

Wendla gave him her sweet, gentle smile, and nodded again.  “I only ask you for one thing.”

“ _Yes._ ”  The intensity of the word surprised even Melchior himself.  “Anything, Wendla, please.”  When had he become so desperate for this?

Wendla’s response sent a startling thrill up Melchior’s spine.  “I have nothing to beat you with,” she responded.  “You’ll have to find me another switch.”

There were several seconds of fraught silence before Melchior managed to respond.  “Of course.”  God, how could such simple words make him feel so much?

Melchior’s favorite tree was old enough and tall enough that few branches seemed to fall from its height.  He turned and wandered away from where Wendla stood, his eyes scouring the ground for a potential switch.  The heady thought that he was searching for the implement that would soon be used to beat him was never far from Melchior’s mind.  He picked up a newly-fallen branch from the ground and examined it carefully.  The branch seemed promising enough; when Melchior bent it, it was flexible, and when he swung it through the air it made a satisfying _whish_.  As far as he could tell, it was as strong and flexible as the one Wendla had given him, and even a bit thicker.  It seemed to Melchior that this was just as well; he wanted to feel it, didn't he?  

Once Melchior was satisfied with the branch he had chosen, he turned and brought it back to Wendla, and offered it to her without a word.

Wendla’s eyes were fixed on Melchior’s face, observing him carefully as he stepped forward with the branch in hand.  When he held it out to her, Wendla accepted the branch from him and began to inspect it herself.  Her expression was curious, inquisitive as she held out one hand and struck the branch against her open palm, once, twice.  Clearly Wendla was testing something.  Was she deciding if she would make Melchior fetch her another switch that was more acceptable to her?  Was she determining how hard she would hit him?  A strange feeling twisted in Melchior’s gut as he watched her.  He couldn’t identify what the feeling was, nor even whether it was pleasant or not.

Then Wendla drew back her hand and swung hard, the switch making a loud swish as it cut through the air.  All of Melchior’s cares, concerns and questions seemed to melt away at the sound and fall in a puddle at his feet.  The twisting inside him intensified, and suddenly Melchior recognized the feeling for what it was.  It must be some as yet unknown kind of arousal.  But how could this--?

Wendla, at least, seemed to be content with her examination.  Satisfied with the branch he had offered her, she looked back to Melchior.  Wendla stepped toward him, her manner cautious but her expression open and bearing no sign of hesitance.  Melchior took this to be a good sign.

“Well,” Wendla broke the silence, staying remarkably calm. “Shall I hit you through your clothing?”

For all the times that Melchior had played out this scenario in his mind, he had never once planned for this.  Startled though he was, he recovered quickly.  “Was it true what you said,” he stalled, “that you weren’t able to feel anything through your dress?”

Wendla too seemed surprised by the question, but responded, “It is true.”  There was a long pause as Melchior searched for a response, while Wendla waited for him to say something.  When Melchior failed to speak, she offered, “Perhaps I should start over your clothes at first, and then you can decide.”

Melchior could feel his face getting warmer at the thought, a blush surely rising to his cheeks.  He wondered again if Wendla noticed.  It was a reasonable offer, he supposed; he had also started beating her with her dress on.  Yet Wendla’s words were stirring things deep inside Melchior, those answers which he had known all along but did not want to admit.  He knew for certain now what he must do.  

Melchior looked at Wendla and shook his head.  “Then no.  I need to feel what you felt.  I have to feel it the same way, even if it hurts.  I hurt you.”

Wendla raised her eyebrows in concern.  Finally, her composure broke, and for the first time she seemed uncertain.  “Melchior…”

“If you want me to keep my clothes on, that’s fine!  Like I said, you don’t have to do any of this at all,” Melchior repeated himself uselessly.

“No, no.  If it’s what you want.  I want to help you.”

Her words seemed so innocent.  Melchior asked himself again if Wendla knew what she was agreeing to.  But she had offered again and again, even in the face of his insistence that she did not have to.  There was nothing else Melchior could do to assure himself of her willingness; he could only trust her.  “All right,” he said simply.

Melchior felt the weight of Wendla’s eyes on him as he began to unbutton his blazer.  He slipped the jacket down his arms more slowly than he normally would, feeling self conscious under her gaze.  Such a routine action now felt different somehow.  But Melchior had committed himself to this, and he must keep going.

Melchior’s hands felt unsteady, his fingers clumsy as he reached up and took down his suspenders.  He took another deep breath to calm his nerves, but the technique seemed to be getting less and less effective.  As Melchior reached for the fastening of his trousers, he paused.  He could feel an electric tension in his skin, his whole body charged with anticipation, coupled with something that felt a bit like fear.  He could no longer stand to face Wendla like this, and so he turned away from her.  He already felt far too exposed.  It took much of Melchior’s willpower to move his hands the rest of the way, to coax his fingers into working the buttons until his trousers were open.  If Wendla noticed his hesitance, she gave no sign of it.  

Melchior had never known that anticipation could have such a physical effect.  How had Wendla felt as she asked him for this, and then again as she waited for him to strike her?  With as much control as he could muster, Melchior pushed his trousers down around his knees.  The air was cool against his thighs, and his self-consciousness seemed somehow to dissipate and to intensify at the same time.  He was no longer sure that he was making the right choice.

Wendla cleared her throat, and when Melchior turned to look at her she tapped his shirt tail with the switch.  Melchior felt another shiver run up his spine as he complied with the unspoken request.  His hands grasped his shirt tail to lift it in the back, while he attempted to maintain his modesty in front.  Wendla did not respond except to nod her head.

Melchior collected himself and addressed himself to Wendla.  "All right.  I'm ready."

Wendla whipped the branch through the air behind Melchior, testing it out, and Melchior started at the sound as if she had really struck him.  He could hear Wendla laughing behind him, the sound comforting even if it were at his own expense.  Then Melchior heard the switch make another cut through the air, and without warning he felt it strike him.

For a split second there was no pain, even though Melchior knew that he had been hit.  Then, the hot sting began to blossom in a line across his ass.  Melchior gasped.  To be struck on his bare skin was entirely different from being struck through his uniform by his teacher’s rod.  It hurt, worse than he had imagined.  What was he doing here?

Wendla stepped up beside him, and asked him gently if he would like another stroke.  Thus far Melchior had managed to frame this experiment in terms of need, in order to avoid confronting the question of desire.  Now he was being asked what he _wanted_ , and Melchior had to admit that Wendla wasn't wrong to use the word.  “Yes,” he responded simply, in doubt that he could have said much more.

Once more Wendla struck him, and once more Melchior gasped at the sting, the heat.  He was surprised by how fast the pain seemed to build.  But he recovered shortly, and without any further prompting he asked, “Again.”  Wendla hit him a third time, then waited.  Melchior heaved a vocal sigh as he felt the pain spread across his skin, and he nodded for her to continue.

Wendla struck him again and again, no longer waiting for confirmation from Melchior.  It hurt, damn it hurt, and Melchior wondered how much more of this he might take.  Perhaps Wendla was waiting for him to stop her--or perhaps she didn't intend to stop until she herself was satisfied, nevermind what Melchior wanted.  There was something in that thought which gave him chills.  He had a sense that it would be just, that he deserved punishment for what he had done to her, that he deserved no control here after he himself had beaten Wendla until she was left terrified and weeping on the ground.  Would she keep going until Melchior, too, was crying?  Melchior wasn't even sure that he could.  He had trained himself to respond stoically to any punishment he was given, and now it could be his downfall.  

Melchior was becoming so overwhelmed that he could think of little else but the smarting in his backside, and the possibility of making it stop.  Yet the questions that had prompted this undertaking remained unresolved:  why did Melchior not protest?  Why, indeed, did he continue to encourage her, even though he was already in a good deal of pain?  Was he finally beginning to understand her?

Melchior’s ass felt sore, the thin lines blurring together into a single throbbing ache.  Each strike with the switch had become a small flicker of more pain in the midst of that constant, low burn.  He struggled to think, the pain driving him to distraction.  Should he ask Wendla to stop?  His breathing hastened, and with the next stroke Melchior heard himself swear.  His hands slackened their grip on his shirt tail, and it fell to cover him.

At this, Wendla indeed stopped.  She stepped in front of Melchior to look at him.  “Do you want me to keep going?  Melchior?”

Melchior looked up at her, his gaze intense, if unsteady.  “I think I can understand now.”  He paused.  “Do you think I understand?”

A look of concern returned to Wendla’s face.  “I don’t want to harm you or frighten you.”  Melchior’s mind was thankfully not aware enough to grasp the implications of her words.  “Are you finished?”

Melchior nodded.  “Yes, thank you.”  His breathing was heavy and coarse.  He bent down to pull up his trousers and fasten them, moving carefully as the rough fabric brushed against his backside.  He quickly tucked in his shirt tail and pulled up his suspenders again.  

Wendla seemed unsure what to make of everything.  She observed him quietly as he dressed himself, then when he was decent, she asked,  “Did you find what it was that you were looking for?”

Melchior’s eyes went wide for a fraction of a second.  He wasn’t sure he had an answer to that, but at the very least, she deserved his honesty.  “I’m… I’m not sure.  I don’t know anymore what I expected to find, so I can’t say if I found it.”  His eyes, his demeanor softened.  “But I appreciate your help.  Thank you.”

Wendla still seemed a bit confused, but she did not ask him any more questions.  Melchior tried to give her a comforting smile, and Wendla smiled back.  She seemed to take comfort in his apparent satisfaction with the ordeal.

Melchior continued his attempts to reassure her.  “I’m fine.  Really.”  He even laughed.  “Perhaps we’re even now?”  It was more a question than a statement.  Wendla too laughed and nodded, and this levity seemed to calm her.

Privately, Melchior may have left with more questions than answers.  Was he better for it?  What had he wanted--to feel something? To understand Wendla’s desire for this?  To understand what he had put her through?  He knew he hadn’t experienced her pain and fear completely, but he had felt something, even if he could not articulate what it was.  Perhaps he would never find the answers.

Perhaps, for once, answers were not what he had been searching for at all.


End file.
